Matchmaker, Matchmaker
by She's a Star
Summary: After walking in on Hermione and Harry in a...compromising position, Ginny takes upon her shoulders the task of sparing Ron heartache and decides to find him someone else. Which certainly doesn't spell disaster in any way, shape, or form. (Cough.) Right.


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Matchmaker, Matchmaker

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by She's a Star

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Disclaimer: HP. JKR's. Yep. Fancy that.

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Author's Note: What is _up_ with me and the mini-chapter fics? Lemme tell ya, I'm subconsciously suicidal in the way of fics or something. But anyway, I was browsing my computer, and found this. And then kinda found it a bit entertaining, and decided to upload. And heck, I might even continue it if anyone happens to display the teeniest bit of interest.

Highly inspiring interest.

Chapter One: Of Zealous Snogging and Zodiac Signs

Hermione Granger was an absolute trollop.

No, no, no. Ginny attempted to calm herself. That wasn't very kind of her, after all. And who knew? Maybe she was completely misunderstanding the whole situation. It wasn't impossible, after all.

. . . oh, bugger kindness. It was rather difficult to misinterpret a situation where two people were piled on top of one another on one of the Gryffindor sofas, limbs entangled and breathing shallow.

And that was exactly how Ginny had found Hermione and Harry approximately seven minutes before.

Of course, she hadn't made her presence known. She'd been a bit too busy staring at the traumatizing scene in horror to throw out a cheery 'hello' or two. And, well, as soon as it had clicked in her mind exactly what she was looking at, she'd had to turn around and run back out into the corridor because, quite frankly, if she'd witnessed any more of the tawdry, hormonal display, she would've become unpleasantly reacquainted with the treacle pudding she'd had at dinner.

Ginny had never been particularly skilled at mathematics, but she knew one thing for certain -

There had to be an error in Harry + Hermione = Snog Fest.

It was downright unnatural.

For one thing, Ron was going to be entirely heartbroken. It wasn't exactly a secret that he was smitten with Hermione in all her know-it-all, free-the-house-elves, I-break-combs-while-grooming glory. (All right. Perhaps Ginny was being a bit irrational. . . . Nah.) As a matter of fact, the only person who hadn't quite come to terms with that fact was Ron himself, though Ginny suspected he'd finally accepted and embraced his inevitable love for Ms. Granger the year before. After all, giving her perfume for Christmas hadn't exactly been a gesture that screamed 'platonic' in bold, shiny letters.

And Hermione! Who'd have thought she would change her mind so easily? Ginny happened to know a bit of strictly classified information, and that was that Hermione was positively head over heels for Ron, as well. Hermione had done exceptionally well at concealing this until after the Yule Ball (or the Yule Brawl, as Ginny more accurately remembered it) two years before. That night after screaming her feelings for Ron all over the Gryffindor common room (or so Hermione had been convinced she'd done - no matter how hard she tried, Ginny hadn't been able to convince her friend -- _ex-_friend -- that she really was more subtle than she apparently thought), she'd had a bit of an emotional breakdown in which those four long-awaited words had finally been uttered:

'Ginny, I _like_ him.'

Okay, so perhaps Ron's utter obliviousness on the subject had gotten a bit old. If anyone knew anything about liking a boy for ages in an unrequited fashion, it was Ginny. (Two and a half years, thank you.) But still . . . that gave her _no_ right to change her mind all of a sudden in order to have an excessive kissing session with the Boy Who Lived.

And secondly, Harry was _hers_.

Well . . . formerly hers, more like, but he had been hers once! (Yes, yes, in a one-sided sort of way, if you wanted to get into the technicalities.) It wasn't like Hermione to be so insensitive, especially since she was full aware how much Ginny had adored Harry once.

And even if she didn't exactly adore him anymore -- which she certainly did not -- it didn't mean that she was entirely over him, nor that she was keen on the idea of watching him exchange saliva with . . .

Hermione.

It was wrong. Incurably wrong.

"That _hussy_," Ginny muttered bitterly, trying very hard to get the mental picture of what she'd just witnessed out of her mind. Unfortunately, she'd never been good at repressing, and it looked like the horrifying encounter was there to stay. "That complete _hussy_."

"Who's a hussy?"

Ginny turned around to see Ernie Macmillan staring curiously at her.

"Hermione Granger," she spat, before realizing that this probably wasn't information she should go blurting to the world.

. . . but why shouldn't she, anyway? If Hermione was going to do things like that, then Ginny figured she had every right to share them.

Of course, she was rather glad that Hermione didn't share this particular philosophy. Otherwise, Michael probably would have been found dead and horribly mutilated in one of Filch's broom closets (courtesy of Fred, George, and Ron) after Hermione had walked in on Ginny and her former boyfriend kissing in an empty classroom the year before.

"Hermione?" Ernie repeated, bemused.

"Why?" Ginny demanded furiously. "Do you have any reason why she wouldn't be?"

"Well, she just seems a bit . . . chaste to be a hussy, that's all," Ernie said tentatively, then continued on his way down the hall. Ginny couldn't help but notice the significant increase in speed as he walked away from her.

Oh well. She had never liked him anyway.

Scowling, she pushed open the library doors, fully intent upon wandering through the stacks and glaring daggers at book spines. After all, if anyone reminded her of books, it was Hermione. Hermione in a full-on lip lock with Harry--

_Bad! Go away!_ she instructed the highly unpleasant memory, feeling rather insane.

"What's wrong, Gin?"

She looked over to see Ron sitting at a table, surrounded by half-full pieces of parchment and textbooks.

Ron.

She felt a pang in her heart.

How was he going to take it? He'd probably be completely devastated. No, scratch that. Ginny knew with an utmost certainty that he'd be positively crushed. She only hoped that he wouldn't attempt to jump off of the Astronomy Tower or anything drastic like that. Perhaps Professor Sinistra strictly monitored all attempted suicides of that particular kind.

Well, one thing was for sure: Ron couldn't find out.

"Oh, nothing," she said with a grin, cringing at the sound of her own voice. It was about an octave higher than usual, and positively dripping with false cheer.

_Oh, really nice, Gin. You're a regular actress._

"Have you gone mental?" Ron asked, frowning at her.

"Of course not," she snapped.

All right. That was far better.

"You sounded like Umbridge," Ron informed her, shuddering.

"_Hem, hem_," she promptly shot back.

Really, no one seemed to appreciate what a skill Umbridge-impersonating was.

Ron glared at her. "Shut up. I'm trying to block out all the memories of that nasty old cow. Or toad, more like," he threw in, after a moment of consideration.

Ginny smiled and glanced down at his homework. "Is all of this due tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Ron said miserably. "And I don't have a bloody idea what I'm supposed to be writing about. Plus, Hermione's busy, and--"

"Hermione's . . . busy?" Ginny asked, biting her lip.

Well, the boy wasn't wrong.

"Yeah," Ron said glumly. "Something about spew."

"S.P.E.W.," Ginny corrected him automatically.

He glared menacingly at her.

"Er. Sorry," Ginny timidly apologized.

Ron stared down at his incomplete essay for a moment before announcing, very gravely, "I'm doomed."

He looked absolutely miserable.

And that was just because Hermione wouldn't help him with his homework. (Though Ginny wasn't sure whether more devastation was caused by the fact that he was being neglected by Hermione or that he would receive failing marks.) Imagine how he'd be if he discovered _why_ he was currently battling Potions all on his own . . .

There was only one possible solution.

She had to somehow get Ron to stop fancying Hermione, before it was too late and his heart was broken into a thousand bite-sized pieces.

"I don't think Hermione is good for you," Ginny informed him, as composedly as she could manage.

Ron blinked. "What??"

"Hermione," Ginny continued. "I mean, what kind of a friend is she if she's choosing house-elves over you?"

"Well, I didn't actually _tell_ her my homework wasn't done. I'm not completely daft." Ron was on his way to being fully exasperated; Ginny could sense these things. "I just asked her if she wanted to go to the library, and she looked at me funny and said she had to do something for spew instead."

"Ah," Ginny said with a weak smile.

"Now, why're you saying she's not good for me?" Ron asked suspiciously. "She's one of your best friends."

"Oh, oh, I know," said Ginny quickly. "It's just that . . . well . . . she's a Virgo."

"What?" Ron asked, clearly bewildered.

All right. It was time to think fast. But she could handle it, of course. She was good at this.

"She's a Virgo," Ginny repeated, with more force this time. "And everybody knows that Virgos and Pisceses totally clash, personality-wise."

"Is Pisceses a word?" Ron inquired. "'Cause it sounds a bit stupid."

"That's not the point!" Ginny exclaimed.

"Then what is the point?"

"The point is, dear brother of mine, that _you_ are going to be completely manipulated and ultimately hurt by her Virgo-y ways."

"Okay, now I _know_ that's not a word," Ron said.

"It doesn't matter what's a word and what isn't!" Ginny cried. Madam Pince gave her a rather evil glare, and Ginny lowered her tone. "What matters is that this month, she is going to stab you in the back. Hurt you so badly that you're going to wish you'd never been born."

"Where the bloody hell are you getting all this?" Ron demanded.

"Professor Trelawney," shot back Ginny indignantly.

Ron snorted.

. . . all right, so she hadn't exactly selected the most reliable source.

Whoops.

"Professor Trelawney is a mad old bat," Ron informed her, looking as though he was attempting to hold back laughter - and not succeeding very well, at that, "and don't you start listening to her, or you'll turn into Parvati Patil."

"What's wrong with Parvati Patil?" Ginny asked, ignoring the fact that she herself had compiled a list of things that were, in fact, wrong with Parvati Patil. In an extreme fit of boredom, of course. (She had come up with a total of forty-three.)

"Well, nothing at all, if you don't mind having a brain the size of a walnut."

Oh, damn.

"Fine, don't believe me," she said, full aware of how stupid she sounded. "But you're going to be sorry."

"Yeah, yeah," Ron said, waving a dismissive hand. "I know one thing's for sure - I'm going to be sorry if I don't finish this essay, so get out of here."

"All right," Ginny said sweetly. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"'kay, I won't," said Ron distractedly, already scribbling a new sentence across his parchment.

Ginny stared at him sadly for a moment before standing up and retreating from the library. She should've known he would have been completely stubborn and disagreeable about this. That was Ron, after all. But still, she wasn't sure she'd be able to bear seeing his heart crushed, all because of a serious case of hormones that had overtaken Hogwarts' resident genius and the savior of the wizarding world.

Well, one thing was for certain - she would figure out how to prevent Ron from finding out. Or maybe she would just have to show him that Hermione wasn't the only fish in the sea; there were plenty of other girls out there.

. . . why, that wasn't such a bad idea.

If Ron and Hermione couldn't be together, then who was to say that Ron and some other girl couldn't as well?

No one, that was who.

So it was settled. She would think about other potential matches for her brother, and when she settled on the perfect one, she would go into matchmaking mode.

. . . and, naturally, she would also go out of her way to make sure Harry got 'accidentally' kicked off his broom tomorrow at Quidditch practice.


End file.
